Malawi’s population now at 17.5million

Malawi population has now reached 17,563,498 million up from 13,029,498 in 2008 according to preliminary results for 2018 population and housing census-PHC.

NSO Commissioner Mary Kanyuka (C) releasing results

11January

Making the disclosure in Zomba, the Commissioner of Statistics Mercy Kanyuka hailed the country’s President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika for taking a leading role during the census by making messages calling for people to participate in the exercise.

Kanyuka said the preliminary results are indicating that the country’s total population has grown by 35 percent between 2008 and 2018.

“The population for males is 8,521,456 representing 59 percent of the total population while the population for females is 9,042,293 representing 51 percent of total population,” Kanyuka said.

The commissioner of statistics further disclosed that at regional level the southern region has the highest number of people with 7,750,629 representing 44 percent of the total population. The Central region is the second most populous with 7,526,160 people representing 43 percent of the entire population while 2,286,960 which is 13 percent live in northern region.

Among the districts, Lilongwe rural has the highest standing at 1,637,583 followed by the lakeshore district of Mangochi which has a population of 1,148,611. Likoma district on Lake Malawi has the lowest population of 14,527. Lilongwe city is said that it continues being a biggest city population wise with total population of 989,318 followed by Blantyre with population of 800,264. The evergreen, Mzuzu city is the largest with 221,272 people followed by the country’s first capital city Zomba which has 105,013 people.

The first ever digital 2018 Population and Housing Census was supported among others by USAID, UKAID, United Nations in Malawi, GIZ, Government of Norway, People’s Republic of China and Standard Bank of Malawi.